Concert Hacker

Inspiration

There is currently not much functionality for searching for nearby concerts through Alexa. So we set out to create a more intuitive and feature rich Alexa Skill.

What it does

Currently, it searches concerts by artists, date, or city.

How we did it

Using Amazon AWS, we were able to create a function that called Ticketmaster's API for upcoming events and their information by parsing through a JSON file and returning the information requested by the user.

Challenges we ran into

Learning how AWS is set up and how to get started was a challenge in and of itself. Additionally, once we got coding, the AWS Lambda editor does not have debugging which made it difficult to deal with errors.

We also had to learn how to make API calls to 3rd party endpoints and return data.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Learning how to call a website's API and return their wealth information is invaluable and a skill that none of us had before the hackathon. This skill can be applied to other projects outside of Alexa Skills.

What's next for Concert Hacker

We did not have time to implement Amazon's location services, but this is possible and something that could be done in the future.
Additionally, we could provide more information and events outside of just musical concerts using Ticketmaster's API which has access to sports events, plays, and more. This could be easily implemented on a wider scale.